This might sound really odd, but the original inspiration for these came from the see-through elevator in a West Bank parking ramp near the Rarig Center in Minneapolis. I was walking between Fringe Festival venues in August and was distracted and fascinated by the inner workings of the lift that could be seen through the glass. Those mechanisms started out more literal in the first painting and evolved a lot, unexpectedly turning into something that reminds me of lungs (a subconscious throwback to the Phantom Organs paintings I did three years ago?). That moment was also what spurred me to add the phrase “my curiosity about the similarities between the things we build, and the things we are built of” to my artist statement – long before I had actually made the paintings. Constantly trying to catch up to my brain.

Elevation 1
Watercolor on Paper, 2014.
8″ x 10″

Elevation 2
Watercolor on Paper, 2014
8″ x 10″

Elevation 3
Watercolor on Paper, 2014
8″ x 10″

I’ll be installing an assortment of my work at One Yoga studio in Minneapolis on Saturday. It will be up for two months and I’ll post more details and photos once the show is up.

Giant Steps: So much food for thought, my brain has a tummyache. In a good way.

What is Giant Steps? Giant Steps is a remarkable one day conference for creative entrepreneurs of all types, founded by Susan Campion of Camponovo Consulting and M.anifest. It brings together creative professionals, artists, foodies, business owners, consultants, freelancers, nonprofit and/or arts administrators, musicians, dancers, photographers, filmmakers, and anyone else who wants to be at the table.

Better put: it is a fountain of insight from people you normally might not think to or have the opportunity to interact with in a professional way. The variety of background and experience of people on the panels and as participants ran the gamut, from hip hop artists, to a eco-and health- conscious sex shop owner. From Robyne Robinson (Fox news anchor, jewelry artist, recent political candidate, former gallery owner…), to a guy who started painting athletic shoes for fun as a teenager and turned it into a business. You see a professional dancer on the same panel as the owner of a company two people big that makes bitters in Milwaukie. Local spoken word artist Desdamona moderated a panel that included photographer Wing Young Huie who has documented the everyday faces of Lake Street, Frogtown, University ave, etc, along with Sameh Wadi owner of Saffron, a middle eastern restaurant in Minneapolis which has now branched out into the food truck biz. Another plenary included stories from David “TC” Ellis about growing up with Prince, being on the streets, and eventually getting sober and founding “Hip Hop High.” On the same panel we heard from May Lee-Yang, a Hmong writer and theater performer who made the excellent point that when people say Hmong actors aren’t as good as Guthrie actors, she responds “Yeah, no shit!” because the Hmong community doesn’t even have a long history of written language, much less have a history and background of theater to build from. You start where you’re at.

What you take away from listening to these incredible people fills the spectrum: Perseverance. Humility. That it is possible to accept failure and move forward from it. You can push through, and be a better person for the obstacles you’ve gone through. Finding balance. Staying true to your needs and vision. Figuring out when to say yes, when to say no, and when you need a contract in writing. How to do your friggin’ taxes. How to think about currency, assets, and value in a new way. How to get famous using the internet (apparently; I didn’t actually go to that breakout session, ha). How to share your message. How to explain why your message and project matters – who cares? Why here, and why now? Building relevancy. Finding a collaborator who will push you to get to the next level, rather than just giving you praise & validation. Making something together that’s better than what you could have made individually on your own. Maintaining vision. Remembering infinite growth is probably not really your goal. Think more about slow growth. Local growth. Growth doesn’t have to mean expansion; it can mean digging in deeper to what you’re already doing, like Danny Schwartzman’s decision to literally dig in and build a garden behind Common Roots café and start a catering service out of their Lyndale Ave. location instead of expanding to a whole new restaurant in St. Paul.

Other highlights & quotes:

“Take the leap because sometimes that freefall is what you need.” -I’ve actually lost track of who said this; I think it was either Robyne Robinson or David “TC” Ellis

Hearing TC Ellis talk about trying to get Prince to give him a hand getting into the music biz by rapping in his face every time he ran into him at the club.

“Every time I thought I was bored I was actually really afraid of something [that I needed to do].” – Dawn Mikkelson. This one hit me so hard! So true. She went on to say “I’m scared of it, that means I need to do it.” I was having a lot of insight like this in the spring. It’s so easy to become complacent again, or to move forward but then get caught up in things and lose focus or direction.

Many quotes from Robyne Robinson: “I got 240 rejection letters before I got my first job.” “If nobody wants this I’ll take it and make it into something incredible.” “Fear is the mind-killer.” “I did everything I could possibly do to get my foot in the door.”

“One of the challenges is I have too many passions.” – I Self Divine

“You’re blessed if you know what you want to do early in life. And you’re also cursed because then you have to do it.” –Wing Young Huie

“Inspiration is for amateurs.” – Chuck Close, quoted by Wing Young Huie

We were asked to create our own “dollars” that represented one item or skill we could share, and then find someone in the room who would either buy that thing/skill with a real dollar bill, or trade their own invented “dollar.” I traded “one funky drawing that doesn’t make sense” for “supporting verbage: a good reason or rationalization for doing something.” We were then asked to shout out our perception of how much value we held in our hands after everyone traded; answers got up well into the hundreds or perhaps above a thousand.

Anyway, continuing with quotes from the day:

“I don’t get out of bed without a contract.” – Nick Kosevich (the guy who makes bitters)

(Paraphrased) “You have to figure out how to get taken seriously even though you’re talking about buttplugs, and at the same time remember not to take buttplugs too seriously.” – Jennifer Pritchett, owner of Smitten Kitten

Also, ran into friends & colleagues I knew would be there, but also artists I’d never met in real life before (like Kate), as well as someone I’d met 9 months ago at a Springboard community art projects workshop who I also ran into again at Seward coop two days after the conference, and lots of new people who I hope to reconnect with in person and online in the future.

I think my brain is still digesting. Which is okay; I don’t want it to fade away too quickly. I’m content with ruminating on all of this for a long while.

Sometimes, I take pictures of gross things that inspire me. Like these mushrooms that came with a food donation this week:

Mmmm they are so intriguing and gooey and mysterious. And floppy. I love fungi.

A couple of weeks ago I conquered my fear of cutting up a whole raw chicken. Although it wasn’t as tough as I’d imagined, I still never want to be a butcher (well, maybe if it involved wearing this and marrying mike myers). After I was done cooking & shredding the chicken I had an inescapable urge to take the perfectly intact wishbones home with me. So, I did.

wishbones

What shall I do with them? Draw them, perhaps? Wait for a friend to come visit so we can make wishes and break them? What is it about bones that makes them so fascinating? This instinctual curiosity with and collecting of dead things is reminding me of the dead bats story. I could have sworn I had blogged about the dead bats, and intended to just link to an old post here, but a search for “dead bat” in my old wordpress blog comes up with nada. Plus while paging through really old blog posts I realized that I’m not sure I feel like encouraging my readership to go back and read my bizarre ramblings from 2 yrs ago. So hey! Here’s a weird story about the strangest thing I ever did for art. I told a couple friends about it at the St. Paul Bureau of Arts & Beverages last month, so I guess it was on my mind when I brought home my chicken bones. (Psst click on the link! Art happy hour with Springboard peeps is awesome! And it’s happening again this Monday.)

It was Valentine’s Day of 2006. I was living in Northfield, MN and on my morning walk to campus I found two dead bats lying in the snow on the sidewalk next to the old middle school building (soon to be Carleton’s new arts center). The fact that I found them on Valentine’s Day has always seemed sort of…appropriate somehow. Maybe because I had recently broken up with someone at the time. The poor little guys looked so pitiful, belly-up & frozen, so I scooted them off to a hidden corner, thinking I didn’t want a dog to come find them and tear them apart. I walked on to work, but their memory sort of haunted me and they were still there when I walked home later that day. So the next time I put them in a shoebox and brought them to Boliou with me. I decided I simply had to draw them. It was fated to be so. I taped them to the outside of the print studio windows (that way they stayed cold and didn’t stink up the studio), and I made a lithograph of them.

Chiroptera, Lithograph, 2006

Funny, I don’t remember getting very much flack from other Carleton staff & students about being the weird Studio Art 5th year who tapes dead animals to windows. You’d think I would have, but hey, it’s Carleton. And my fellow 5th year Peter Sowinski made a sculpture that same year that included a dead mouse, so…dead animals were a common theme for us. Anyhoo, after I was done, the batties lived in a ziplog bag inside a box for a while until spring, and then I buried them in my backyard. RIP.

So, that’s the dead bat story. Weirdest thing I have ever done, and perhaps will ever do, for art’s sake.

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